Curiosity killed the cat
by Miss Halfway
Summary: He didn’t know she had a son. She wasn’t pregnant when they left the island, was she? No, he was a doctor and he could identify the signs of pregnancy quite accurately. She wasn’t pregnant when they left the island. Reviewing doesn't cause infertility.


**Title: **_Curiosity killed the cat._

******Rating:** PG-13.

******Character: **Jack, Kate, implied Kate/Sawyer and Jack/Kate.

******Summary: **He didn't know she had a son. She wasn't pregnant when they left the island, was she? No, he was a doctor and he could identify the signs of pregnancy quite accurately. She wasn't pregnant when they left the island, he was sure about that.

**N/A:** my second fic in English! I never thought I would write anything about Jack, because I can't stand him. But utena89 asked me to do it and I couldn't resist...

**Warning: **spoilers up to 4x04, 'Eggtown'.

**Disclaimer:** Lost and its characters do not belong to me.

Reviewing doesn't cause infertility.

* * *

Jack saw her, quick as a shooting star, in one of those gutter press magazines he had always claimed to hate. To be honest, he was walking on his own, somewhere near the Yankee Stadium in New York, when suddenly a brief and familiar image captured his eye. At first he tried to keep on moving, but after a few steps he realized he couldn't. 

Closing eyes to reality had never been one of his main virtues.

So he approached slowly without thinking, just letting the unsteady mountains of magazines and newspapers attract him with a kind of irreversible magnetic power. He took the one in whose front page he could see a photo of her, showing her back to the camera, with a baby in her arms, apparently saying goodbye. He spent four whole minutes staring at her perfectly defined curls, counting them, losing himself into their precise shapes, so different from the messy, disheveled hairstyle she used to wear in the island. He remembered that with the shadow of a bitter and fast smile as he slid some coins towards the owner of the kiosco, and then started his way back home shuffling along.

He ran across this random guy playing some long forgotten songs by Eric Clapton, and somehow his light hair and his old rock star look reminded him of Charlie. Poor Charlie, he thought while stepping strongly onto the pavement. He recalled Desmond's face too, his omnipresent blue shirt and the way the Scotchman whispered to him, with his broad accent, why had Charlie passed away.

Because he believed he was doing it for them. Because he received the truth Desmond gave to him as something to hold on, to rely on. He died with the thought that he was saving Claire and Aaron, mainly, but also Jack, Hurley, Kate and all the rest.

If he knew his sacrifice had been in vain.

Jack looked at right and left and then started crossing the road as the singer in the street attacked the first chords of an acoustic, heartbreaking version of _Layla_. He didn't even try to help it. He knew he wasn't able to think in anything except from Kate when listening to that particular song (he had been avoiding his deep-rooted Eric Clapton CDs since they got off the island, but in that occasion it was simply fate. He couldn't escape of the notes, nor the moan of the guitar that was filling his soul in no time).

The third and fourth line of the song reached him before he had time to evade them. Fate.

_You've been running and hiding for much too long_

_You know it's just your foolish pride_

He was starting to think like Locke used to do, and it was creepy. Looking back at the singer, Jack noticed he even didn't have anything in common with Charlie apart from the guitar and the fair hair (and, unlike his former island buddy, it was a little wavy). He was paranoid because of finding a photograph of Kate in the press. Period.

He suddenly remembered the magazine he was carrying and why he had bought it. Once he was safe and sound in the opposite sidewalk, he opened it and began to read the article carefully.

They had caught her. Well, it was obvious it would happen eventually. She couldn't expect she was going to be able to escape from the justice once again, could she? No, she couldn't. She was smart enough to not expect that.

He gulped as his eyes skirted the caption. _Austen saying goodbye to her son before being arrested. _Her son.

Those two words hit him in slow motion, just like the crashing waves used to do the few times he swam in the sea back in the island.

Her son.

He didn't know she had a son. She wasn't pregnant when they left the island, was she? No, he was a doctor and he could identify the signs of pregnancy quite accurately. She wasn't pregnant when they left the island, he was sure about that.

But, looking deeper into the photo, he could see some resemblance with… No, it was impossible. The kid actually looked a bit like Aaron, but children always look alike when they're that young.

His glance focused once again in the face of the toddler, a little blurry in the distance, and his sanity staggered when a sudden, bright thought crossed his mind, drawing a thin line of gold filigree in the indigo sky of his altered perception.

He didn't use to swear, but he had to.

"No fucking way in hell"

The toddler's nose looked exactly as Sawyer's.

* * *

Kate's lawyer called him a few days later. He had the strong, charismatic type of voice that a lawyer is expected to own. He asked Jack (or maybe the exact word was _order_, but he was soft and polite and it sounded more like a suggestion from a dear old friend) if he wanted to testify in Kate's trial. About her character, mental faculties and all that rubbish. 

Jack only imposed one condition.

"I want to speak to her before the trial"

He heard a light sigh and smiled triumphantly. He couldn't see the lawyer, but he was sure he was nodding.

"Fine. See you at the court then"

He put the phone down and remained still, immobile, sinking at the same time on the sofa and his own remembrances. He watched time passing by, he let time pass by. He had an outer look at himself, once a successful and attractive spinal surgeon, then a loser that would better attending to AA meetings or maybe in rehab. He knew he had a problem with alcohol and he didn't want it to ever end, because it gave him the excuse he wanted.

So he stood up, went to the small kitchen and prepared himself a drink, _cognac_ actually. His very favourite drink, because his father used to hate it.

* * *

"So, here we are again" the quick smile Kate gave him didn't seem a lot, but Jack didn't need anything more. He had always been the second choice, always a step behind Sawyer (and he would never ever think about him again. Never ever recall his features, never ever pronounce his name, at least in front of Kate. The darkness in her eyes, composed of hundreds of ghosts that were never really left behind, let him know she still missed him). 

"Here we are again" Jack agreed. He hoped he had, but he hadn't, the strength to raise his right hand to caress the little sad face he had in front of him, a face that contained a huge mixture of emotions. He saw pain, nostalgia, grief. Desolation.

She had fallen apart. Jack knew and was dying because of that.

And the worst part was that he couldn't do anything to relieve her ache.

* * *

"I saw you on a magazine the other day" he started in a murmur, feeling like he had to give an explanation for his presence since it had been six, almost seven, months and he hadn't even given her a ring. "With your son" 

"Shooting to kill from the start, uh?" he could feel the throbbing pain he was putting her into, and promised to himself he was not going to regret it. For some reason or another, she deserved it, although he felt his heart shattering into a million pieces when the thought pierced his brain.

He was wrong, but he didn't want to admit it. She didn't deserve it, but it was comforting to think she actually did.

"You know who he is?" she asked, putting behind the ear a rebellious lock of dark hair that had got away from the ponytail.

"Your son" he answered, his voice painfully breaking in the second and last word. "Sawyer's and yours, I guess"

"You've guessed badly, cowboy" he contemplated Kate drawing the beginning of a smile and then quickly wiping it off her face.

A gradual, large amount of relief arrived at him in enormous waves that menaced to drown him. Joy, an emotion he hadn't felt in too much time, invaded his soul, his heart, his mind. He lost his breath as he smiled fully, happily, for the first time in six months.

He almost didn't hear Kate when she asked her second question of the day. It sounded as if it was coming from outer space. Disconnected.

"Don't you want to know about who he is, if he's not Sawyer's?"

"I don't, Kate" he replied quite slowly, revelling the streaming sensations he had inside.

"You'll know anyway" her determined voice was incisive, as sharp as a razor. Jack had the intention of start humming to not hear the words she was going to say out loud, but finally he didn't.

Curiosity killed the cat.

"His name's Aaron. Does it ring a bell anywhere, Jack?"

He was a doctor, not a mathematician. He hadn't thought about the fact that it had only been nearly seven months since they left the island, which meant she couldn't have got pregnant in the outside world.

"Aaron?" he repeated, his mouth becoming dry out of the blue.

"Aaron" her pitch was as irrevocable as a death sentence.

It had only been a few minutes since he had promised he would never ever spend only one second thinking about Sawyer, but that time he had to.

"Son of a bitch"


End file.
